FFmpeg H.264 to AV1 Conversion: A Comprehensive Guide

To convert an H.264 video to AV1 using ffmpeg, you can use the following command:

ffmpeg -i 'input.mp4' -c:v 'libaom-av1' -crf 30 -b:v 0 -strict 'experimental' 'output.av1'

Explanation of the command:

• -i 'input.mp4': specifies the input video file.
• -c:v 'libaom-av1': sets the video codec to 'libaom-av1', which is the AV1 encoder in ffmpeg.
• -crf 30: sets the constant rate factor (CRF) to 30, which controls the video quality. Lower values result in better quality but larger file sizes.
• -b:v 0: sets the video bitrate to 0, which means that the encoder will use a variable bitrate based on the CRF value.
• -strict 'experimental': enables experimental features in the AV1 encoder.
• 'output.av1': specifies the output file name with the .av1 extension.

Note that AV1 encoding is computationally intensive and may take a long time to complete, especially for high-resolution videos.